Jul. 21, 2014
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Sean Carmeli and Orin Shaham. / handout

by Michele Chabin and Renee Klahr, USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin and Renee Klahr, USA TODAY

JERUSALEM - Two native-born Americans who moved to Israel and joined its military were memorialized Monday as casualties of the ground war in Gaza.

Sean Carmeli, 21, of South Padre Island, Texas, and Max Steinberg, 24, of Woodland Hills, Calif., were among the 13 Israeli soldiers killed during clashes with Hamas fighters Sunday.

They were "lone soldiers," the designation the Israel Defense Forces gives to 6,000 soldiers whose parents do not live in Israel. The military says 1,100 are from the USA.

"Lone soldiers have very high motivation. They want to give their share to the Jewish people," said Tziki Aud, founder of the Michael Levin Lone Soldier Center in Jerusalem, which provides support services.

The center, named after a soldier from Philadelphia who was killed during the second Lebanon war in 2006, helped Steinberg "navigate" his new life in Israel, Aud said. The center organizes social events for the young soldiers, helps them find furniture and a place to live, and matches them up with local families.

It's also a place to hang out when their fellow soldiers are back home. Aud said Steinberg often came to the center for meals and activities. "He was quiet, but he had a lot of friends."

Steinberg decided to volunteer in the IDF after visiting Israel for the first time on a popular youth program called Birthright, his father, Stuart, told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. He was accepted into the army's Machal program, which trains non-Israeli Jewish men and women from dozens of countries to become combat soldiers.

Stuart Steinberg told the Jewish Journal his son "was completely dedicated and committed to serving the country of Israel. He was focused, he was clear in what the mission was, and he was dedicated to the work he needed to be doing."

Carmeli, the son of Israeli parents who moved to Texas years ago, didn't seek the exemption many children of Israeli parents who were born and raised abroad try to attain. Instead, he opted to move to Israel to attend high school and was drafted a few months later.

Carmeli, who had sisters in Israel, lived in his family's second home in a Tel Aviv suburb when off duty.

"He could have gone back to the States, but instead he wanted to be in the IDF, in Golani," said Seth Greenberg, a close friend of Carmeli's. "He was really proud and told me how happy he was to be serving his country."

Carmeli, who turned 21 two months ago, moved to Israel from Texas at the age of 15. He lived in Raanana, a town with a large American population. "There is a class for international students who come to Israel, and that's where we met," close friend Orin Shaham said.

When it came time to volunteer for the army, Carmeli desperately wanted to enlist with the Golani Brigade, a ground operations unit, Shaham said. He was recruited just shy of his 19th birthday in March 2012.

"I would worry, 'What if this is the last time I'm going to see him,' but he was so sure nothing was going to happen to him," she said. "He would tell us to shut up, that he'd be fine."

Carmeli's outfit had been stationed on the border of Gaza the previous year in another operation, but it had never entered the Strip. The Golani brigade is always the first group called to action for ground offenses, Shaham said.

"He kept saying, 'I don't want to go back to Gaza, I don't want to go back to Gaza,' " she said. "But he was never nervous, he was never scared for his life. He was always sure he would come home."

He was serving his final year in the IDF at the time of his death. Shaham spoke often with Carmeli about their plans after the army. "Talking about him now, I think of his smile," Shaham recalled. "He was always so optimistic, so silly, and he was never complaining."

"Being in the Israeli army is very hard, but he was always so strong and brave," Shaham said. "Personally, I don't know anyone who has done so much for the army like he did. He gave everything he had to the country he loved."

Aud said Israeli society "very much appreciates" the country's lone soldiers. "They know that these young people could be doing other things with their lives but that instead they've come to serve the state of Israel."

The Steinberg and Carmeli families traveled to Israel on Monday, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of burying the dead the following day.